Thursday, 27 November 2014

I know I keep bleating on about the Australian Government's proposed mandatory data retention scheme and why it's bad, and a lot of people probably don't really understand the issue - but honestly - it's bad.

The second part they're proposing is that they can access that data any time they want, WITHOUT any kind of court mandate, warrant or judicial oversight. The argument is that they need these powers to fight terrorism. Or pedophiles. Or... something else scary. But if they want to tap a phone or break into a premises to fight terrorism/pedophiles/other-scariness, they have to get a warrant. A judge decides if the government REALLY needs to tap that phone or break down that door, before the government is allowed to do it.

If you read George Orwell's "1984" in school... what's that saying? "Absolute power corrupts absolutely"? No government should have unrestricted access to this much information about its citizens, without some kind of judicial oversight to "keep the bastards honest".

Saturday, 15 November 2014

After many years of quiet-introverted-online agitating, I recently took the plunge and became a member of Electronic Frontiers Australia (where I might have to actually, you know, talk to other people and stuff - yikes :/ ).

Then last week, one of my uni tutors announced on a Facebook group that they're looking for somebody to help out with social media, so I put my hand up.